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Notes on Having Moved to the Deep South
From Fred Cole’s curiosity, to Rod Dreher’s podcast appearance people seem to be asking questions about the South on Ricochet. As I recently relocated to Zachary, Louisiana, I thought I’d oblige.
First, some background. I lived in Colorado for 28 years where I married, had children, divorced, and remarried. I participated in the Colorado lifestyle, skiing, biking, and enjoying the outdoors. Then my second wife (who is from Alexandria, LA) asked me last November whether I might consider relocating to Houston so that she could find a job closer to her core competency, Chemical Engineering.
I was not excited. Houston has a slightly less-than-nice sounding reputation for people in Colorado (it rhymes with “bell” or “well”) but, I tried to have a positive attitude. There are are certain advantages there, including lower cost of living, no income tax, and the fact that schools are likely to be based upon a more traditional curriculum. These were serious considerations for us, what with our two soon-to-be-Freshman Girls and a Soon-to-be-Middle school son.
So, we began the process of looking, which didn’t run smoothly. We both would have had to replace our jobs in addition to the other difficulties of changing schools, houses, and the like. So I quickly suggested that we might consider Baton Rouge. This idea had a ton of advantages. Mrs. Majestyk’s family still lives in Louisiana, she went to school at LSU, and I wouldn’t have to change jobs as my company has an office there.
The pieces quickly fell into place. My wife found a job at a plant which offered her a generous relocation package. My job graciously allowed me to transfer offices. We found a house in the number one rated school district in Louisiana.
The house went on the market on January 1 and we were under contract by the first week in February. Between packing, chucking the things that we didn’t want to move, selling the rest and everything else, the next month was a whirlwind, culminating in a drive through Texas in an ice storm.
We arrived in Louisiana in the midst of a rain storm and headed to a new home which I had never seen before, my wife having picked it out on her interview visit. The drive from Baton Rouge to Zachary takes you through areas which simply don’t exist in Colorado; I spent the first couple of weeks here in mild shock.
While our house is beautiful, there are many areas around it which are decidedly not so. I live about 15 miles away from Rod Dreher who is in St. Francisville.
You can buy a lot of house here, for those who don’t know. Here’s the view out of my back window:
For those of you who’ve never been to Colorado, you should. What you’ll notice immediately is that everything is… beautiful. People guard that beauty jealously, and with good reason. Sightlines are a precious commodity. Mountain views are worth thousands of additional dollars on the sale price of your home if you have them.
Sightlines aren’t a thing in Louisiana. To be fair, it’s really flat here, so seeing more than a couple of miles is rare. Rural sightlines are obscured by walls of foliage. I mean like “rainforest.” Traveling down some highways gives the impression that they were tunneled through forests which grudgingly gave way to pavement, what with walls of trees just as opaque as stone on either side.
Urban sightlines here are obscured by… overhead distribution lines. Or by dilapidated buildings stained with mildew. Trash is omnipresent on the sides of roads. There’s an overwhelming sense of decrepitude in a lot of places; as if things were just let go, and the mold and vines have taken over. Siding falls off of buildings. Windows are tinfoiled. Weeds choke the yards.
Concrete — which I am accustomed to being bleached white in the high-prairie sun in Colorado — is everywhere a dingy, permanently wet, grey, and frequently blackened by lichen here.
There is poverty. Grinding, intergenerational poverty. South of my office on Government Street there is a ghetto which is probably every bit as scary as Compton or Watts. Shotgun houses with ramshackle porches where garbage, broken toys and old furniture teem.
There are churches on every corner here. All manner of churches: Baptists, Seventh-Day Adventists, Catholics, and Pentecostals abound.
People are friendly, though. They want to talk to you over your fence. Within five minutes of meeting them, our neighbors asked us what church we were going to attend. This experience has repeated itself whenever we explain to people that we’re new to the area. Like the lady at the utility department in Zachary. Or the checker at the grocery store (LeBlanc’s… you should try it!) Our neighbor even gifted Rediscover Catholicism to us. We politely accepted this gift, even though we can’t help but snicker at this, slightly.
What strikes me is that — despite the unrelenting ugliness of some of the places — there is a beauty all its own here. The Atchafalaya Basin is an amazing sight to behold. What is considered a river in Colorado is a pathetic stream here.
There is opportunity here, too. If a person wanted to have a job, it’s here for the taking, so long as you keep out of a bottle or off of a bong. The amount of industry here is nothing short of amazing. Every major petrochemical company either has a refinery or some industrial presence on the river. Dow. Exxon-Mobil. PPG. They’re all here. If you are willing to work, they’re willing to pay you – and pay you well.
That doesn’t even begin to touch what’s happened with the shale revolution. Driving on county roads or state highways you frequently see on one parcel of land (in this order) a run-down trailer, followed by a modest house followed by a grand abode… followed by a gas recovery site. Fortunes have been made in fracking, and this is no doubt responsible for raising the standard of living across the South, where such things are possible.
I’ve only been here a couple of months but it’s becoming home. You could always get back to me in August, when I’m told the outside is like the inside of a pressure cooker and maybe my opinion will be different, but at least I’ll be able tell you what it’s like from my pool.
There are problems here, to be sure. But there is possibility; such things are possible in the South.
You should give it a shot.
Published in Culture
Love the post. The South is so many things. And Louisiana, like Texas, is practically a whole other country.
I’ve never been to Louisiana but hope to make it there some day. It’s sad that there are job opportunities yet many people would rather live in poverty if employment demands sobriety.
Like.
Fair warning to you about August in the South: my favorite quote comes from ESPN’s Wright Thompson, who analogized summer in Mississippi to living inside someone’s mouth. In all seriousness, welcome. And while you’re at it, you should check out some of Wright Thompson’s work on college football in the South. You need to be prepared for what’s to come this fall.
This is the glaring downside of the south. It is oppressively hot for 4 solid months. I may ultimately leave the south for this reason alone.
We drove through Baton Rouge as we traveled from Tyler, TX to NO and back again this weekend. Our impression was the same. It reminded me more of Mexico than the US. I can’t help but wonder if it’s not a local thing. I’ve never been to Mississippi, but here in Tyler (which has a similar climate to Shreveport) we really haven’t noticed this kind of decrepitude.
That said, all the natives we interacted with were as sweet as could be.
-E
I love Southerners. But I cannot tolerate the heat; I melt.
You can spend your summer at my cabin in Quebec if you reciprocate for me come February.
;-)
Traitor
It was depressing for the first few weeks that I was here. I was seriously beginning to wonder if I had made an error. That feeling has passed though. A few days of nice weather by the pool and all has been forgiven.
For years, I promised myself that I would never move to Texas, which I envisioned as uniformly dry, dusty, and dirty like those old western films. Furthermore, I don’t like big cities, and it seemed all the refining industry centered around Houston.
8 months of unemployment softened my stance. When I was invited to interview in Tyler, I reluctantly agreed (though I certainly didn’t share my reluctance with my potential employer). As C and I drove through east Texas we were flabbergasted at how green and lush it was. It reminded me of Alaska in the summer time, and we were both loving the huge numbers of trees. We took the job.
That was 4.5 years ago, and while I still have no interest to head to Houston, I have a much greater appreciation for the south and Texas. People are open and friendly and industrious. We haven’t had anyone bother us about our Mormon faith, even though we are in solid bible belt territory. Winters are awesome. Cost of living is low due to low tax rates and high economic growth. We even have a great homegrown symphony orchestra. Now, it’s hard to imagine leaving.
-E
I wouldn’t mind moving to the deep south – Naples, FL
Hard to get any further south than that…
I have lived in Birmingham and Montgomery, AL, Atlanta, GA, and the DC area. I like living outside the Beltway in the South the most.
The key in all places is when does the humidity come in and when does it go. It takes the longest in Montgomery, which is the farthest place south. That said, once the humidity broke in Montgomery in about October, great weather would prevail all the way to the end of the year. Then winter, when you have to wear gloves and something on your legs when you run, lasts about 6 weeks. Montgomery had snow once every five years, need it or not; Birmingham and Atlanta have had some more serious snow and ice storms. And, we experienced Snowmageddon (two snows a couple of feet deep a week apart) in DC, where nobody knows what to do with it.
As you note, the people in the South are friendly. And, they care about things other than politics. Particularly, college football. Those features distinguish these places from DC, where it’s all politics all the time and the football isn’t worth watching.
And, be careful about judging places by how they look from the highway. You might be right (Meridian), but there are often nice places away from the highway.
Florida is upside down. The further south you go the further north you get.
I know, I was just being tongue-in-cheek
Much of the unkempt look around Southern cities has more to do with heat, humidity, weather, and thriving vegetation than with any human activity or lack thereof. But there is too much litter in the bigger cities.
If you prefer big city life, I won’t argue against it. But if you want natural beauty and kind neighbors, you’ll usually have better luck 30-60 minutes drive beyond the major cities. For example, Mobile has its charms, but neighboring Daphne and Fairhope are just the right mix of city and country (for now).
If the town has a Cracker Barrel, it’s probably alright.
It’s common in the South for people to be simultaneously “poor” and happy. If the paint is peeling and the roads are full of potholes, that doesn’t mean Al Sharpton would be welcome at supper.
So nice to hear your reflections as a transplant. I was born and raised outside Atlanta and did most of grad school in Memphis. I have never acclimated to the heat and humidity of the summer. It should have been one of Dante’s circles in hell.
That said, I wouldn’t trade it for anything and can’t wait to get back thee.
Welcome to East Baton Rouge Parish (called a county elsewhere). I live near LSU and exactly 1 mile due west of Tiger Stadium, having moved here from Lake Charles in 2001. The beauty of my neighborhood is the diversity of educated thought. I have politically liberal, moderate, and conservative academics who I can actually discuss politics and ideas with, in a civil fashion. LSU also has the largest chapter of College Republicans in the U.S. and 2nd is not even close. It is said that anyone with a US & LSU flags flying is about as close to 100% GOP voter as could be.
You are around the line of demarcation for humidity levels, with St. Francisville being above it. I can feel the difference driving north. From Lake Charles that line exists around Longville and from Houston around the Woodlands. You also live at the “foothills” and in comparison it is much flatter south of you.
FWIW, the center of economic expansion in the U.S. in the petrochemical sector is Lake Charles, LA with better than half of $100 billion of new construction either underway or about to begin.
I’m in North Carolina. It’s beautiful here in every way. Easy winters. Summer is hot and humid, but not so that you can’t stand it. Summer evenings are very pleasant. Can’t walk the dog until after dinner. During the day I can hang out at my pool and beat the heat.
People have been very friendly. It’s much more cosmopolitan than I expected, having moved here from Pennsylvania. Cary, a nearby town, is commonly referred to as the “Containment Area for Relocated Yankees.” I chose to live elsewhere. Still, more than half of the people I meet are in fact relocated from all over the country. The true Carolina drawl is not that common anymore. It’s a pleasure when I do hear it.
My only complaint is that they made me serve 20 hours of community service for a freaking speeding ticket. 51 mph in a 35 zone. I’m much more careful now.
That is to far south to be the deep south. Once you get to Tampa/Central Florida you are to far south to be in the deep south. The farming communities inland are a bit southern in south Florida that are but that has been slowly changing.
I’ll be the outlier and say this: some (perhaps a lot) of the kindness and religiosity is affected. Growing up in Texas I learned early and often that the kind smile often masks sharp teeth. That said, even with the fake nice, the incidence of real civility is still higher there than anywhere else.
Thanks for the back story, Majestyk. Some of your Colorado friends were wondering how that happened so fast!
Songwriter:
I would modify to observe that Texas is the way the rest of America used to be. Louisiana is foreign territory. It’s wonderfully exotic to this native-bred Ohio Yankee, but it’s unfamiliar in almost every way: climate, language, culture, food. I’m not sure I’d adapt (it doesn’t help being allergic to shellfish).
BTW, Maj, is that book from your neighbor by Matthew Kelly? If so, I recommend you read it. It’s a quick read and you’ll get some perspective on your Catholic neighbors. Also, your neighbor didn’t go out and buy it just for you — it’s a giveaway at Catholic churches. Just so you don’t think she’s super weird/pushy.
I’m in North Carolina also. Usually there are about 3-4 weeks of oppressive heat in August or maybe late July. Otherwise, it can be hot, but it’s not Deep South hot.
Having grown up in Alabama I served on a SAC base in western Oklahoma for two years. In Burns Flat the humidity was always low and the wind blew 365 days a year. I remember vividly driving back to Alabama at night with my window down. I could feel the humidity beginning to engulf me and the shadows of trees emerging in my headlights. I was like a fish being returned to water.
In Louisiana by now you have been exposed to southern cooking, particularly Cajun cooking. I understand in most Cajun families the husband does much if not most of the cooking and they are good. I love their shrimp and wild game dishes but have never acquired a taste for crawfish. I am told to really appreciate the crawfish you must suck the juice from the head. Sorry but I pass on that one. You are lucky to have a wife who has gone to LSU. You can now become a legitimate Tiger fan. When moving to Georgia, Alabama or Mississippi you have only a limited time to declare which state school you support and your circle of friends is often decided by that choice.
Your Colorado friends will soon notice that you have a somewhat different accent. When you hear yourself say “Y’all” , “fixin’ to” or “Bless your heart” you will know you have arrived. Welcome to the South.
I didn’t realize it was hot here until we got AC and I became acclimated to it. Perhaps it seems hotter now because I can no longer leave my car windows down when I park and my house windows open when I leave. So what if it gets hot….that is why God created swimming pools, sprinklers, and Slip and Slides. I judge a place by how many months I can’t wear shorts and flip flops. Yes, churches are everywhere….and bigger ones exist as an alternative to government schools – a place for kids to play, attend Boy Scout meetings, and even attend elementary school sans the godless statist curriculum. People are nicer, tea is better, BBQ is one of the food groups, veggies are fresher, and grits is cooked just right. I have an acre in the burbs, several colleges nearby, arts, sports, affordable restaurants, and friendly neighbors. Want a horse? Plenty of choices on where to ride and board. Want to get away for the weekend? You can go to the mountains or the beach in two hours from the middle of the state. You can even go white water rafting within a few blocks of the capitol. We do nuke power. Is there a state law that requires every family to own at least one truck? Looks like it. Like the tourism folks say, “Columbia, Famously Hot.” And here is a little secret, move to a red county and the schools are quite good.
Well, the great thing about Louisiana, even when the summer kicks in, is there is always a fun festival on a weekend, somewhere. Kick back with some etouffee, gumbo, red beans and andouille, and a Dixie (sweet tea or whatever refreshes) and listen to the music; or get on your feet and dance away with the zydeco.
If you enjoyed the outdoors in Colorado, I would suggest investing in a canoe or other boat and discover the beautiful swamps and bottomlands with their incredible flora and wildlife.
When we decide to do things, we commit. All in or all out. I believe in jumping into cold swimming pools rather than working your way in slowly… that just extends the pain.
At any rate, yes – my neighbor gave the book to my wife after it was given out at their parish apparently. He is an interesting dude. His daughter is living at home with him… because she’s dying of cancer. Her girlfriend (they are lesbians) spends almost every day there tending to her. Apparently there was some drama at their previous church because the situation was known and there was some tut-tutting going on, so they switched parishes.
They’re very polite and all and there are no issues. I’ll probably give the book a passing glance this summer by the pool. I have a lot of reading to catch up on anyways.
It’s been an interesting transition, and this is my start at telling people about it.
Of course, I’ll miss you all desperately (you most of all, WC!) – but I’m sure that I’ll be back at some point for work or pleasure. I’ll try to let the community know when I’m going to be there.
I live in Fort Myers. I am open to all Ricochetoise to be your staging area for Naples.
How else is the Great Ricochet Southwest Florida Meetup, 2015, going to happen?
Oh, excursions to Sanibel Island supported too :)